


t'es beau

by zetaophiuchi (ryuujitsu)



Series: t'es beau [1]
Category: SKAM (France), SKAM (TV) RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Excessive Drinking, Hand Jobs, JoMax, M/M, Pining, RPF, Recreational Drug Use, maxel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-07 23:24:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19859746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryuujitsu/pseuds/zetaophiuchi
Summary: When he can speak again, he calls his sister. “I’ve blown it up,” he says. The lightheartedness has taken, finally: he’s his old bouncy self, and he sounds almost gleeful. He could be delivering good news.I have a new project. I have a new shoot. Guess what, I’m getting dinner with Axel.“Everything. The show. My career.”“Maxence,” she says, hushed, “what did youdo?”“Axel,” he whispers. “I slept with Axel.”





	t'es beau

**Author's Note:**

> It's time for more red yarn and ~DRAMA. This is what happens when [FLWhite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FLWhite/pseuds/FLWhite) leaves me unsupervised. (JK, they totally supervised all of this fic from afar anyway.) 
> 
> I wrote most of this before Axel’s comment re: _le bonnet lapin_ and didn’t feel like rewriting the first third to accommodate it, so please forgive the “continuity errors.” 
> 
> The more I attempt to write in a “French” style, the more ellipses I use. I blame Simenon.

_And I need you to know_  
_My heart ain't made of stone  
__My heart ain't made…_

—Mini Mansions, “[Heart of Stone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiPAmNdfr1M)”

_I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on, and TAKE IT!_

—Janis Joplin, "[Piece of My Heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0f5ZG9LG6k)"

It’s J.F. who first tells him, aloud, what his sister and friends and exes have been trying to say with their eyes and their gestures, J.F., lying almost naked beside him in the sand in Biarritz.

“Enough,” J.F. says. At first, Maxence thinks J.F. is trying to toast him, to knock their bottles together companionably, but then J.F. nudges the bottle from his mouth altogether and repeats, “enough,” and, “you know you could have anyone you wanted.”

“Anyone?” he says.

He brings the bottle back to his lips and drinks and knows that the condensation is dripping and sliding down his fingers, over his knuckles, and that J.F. counts himself among _anyone_ , and that he could and has had J.F. for the taking, and that his gaze has a dark magic in it. And he knows also that he is powerless, because Axel walks beneath his stare like an idiot strolling in the shadow of a volcano, barefoot and gorgeous and blissfully ignorant while the mountain smolders and sputters overhead.

He rolls onto his back and feels the sand rubbing the raw skin stretched over his shoulder blades, opening himself up to the sky. The light shines red through the lids of his closed eyes. Floating in the glow, he listens to the steady washing of the sea, the rising tide, and envisions the molten center of his body flowing down to meet it, hardening into stone at water’s edge and releasing all sorts of toxic effluvia: jagged glass and hydrochloric steam. 

“Anyone,” J.F. insists; he presses Maxence’s thigh with the same insistence, and his hand is large enough to span it, to dig into both sides of the quadricep.

J.F. likes beautiful people, but Maxence thinks if he keeps this up, he won’t be beautiful anymore; he’ll look as haggard as he feels. And then, he thinks, paradoxically, Axel will come to love him after all, that pity will transform into desire.

“Not anyone,” he jokes. “Not your mother, for instance.”

J.F. makes a noncommittal sound, and they laugh, and the subject is closed. A day later he joins up with other friends for the road trip: from Biarritz to Bordeaux, Bordeaux to Bilbao. When it’s his turn to drive, he imagines that the car is a classic convertible, that Axel is holding his hand over the gearbox, and that his hair is long again and the wind is gusting through it. They’re listening to the Barbara song Axel likes, and it’s growing on him.

In reality, he’s wearing a bucket hat over his shorn sunburned skull, and the roof of the car is so low that his hat bumps against it when they roll over potholes, and Thibault, in the passenger’s seat, rests his feet on the dash and plays “Heart in a Cage” until Maxence loses all sense of the passage of time and Sandra howls from the back seat that she’s going to kick Thibault onto the road and watch him tumble in the dust.

When his shift at the wheel ends, he curls up in the back and dreams vividly about Biarritz, the black ocean water at two in the morning and J.F.’s long thin shadow as he plunged naked into the waves, and wakes up drooling onto Sandra’s shoulder.

“You okay?” she says. He pretends not to hear.

He watches Axel’s Calvin Klein ad in the foothills of Bilbao, among the tough grasses and boiling sky, and wonders who taught him to spin around like that, to turn and pierce the camera with his eyes. Then he wonders if Axel learned it from _him_ , from watching _his_ videos, from studying _him_ , and that faint thread of hope winds around his fingers and leads him to comment, _You’re beautiful!_ Just in case. But Axel doesn’t respond.

“Dude,” Thibault complains. “We came here to get unplugged, didn’t we? Come on.”

“Sorry, sorry,” he says, tucking his phone away. At night they count the stars and marvel at the lilac mantle of light pollution from the city. Maxence smokes until he loses control of his hands. He thinks about checking his phone again, but he can’t even lift his arms. He lies there giggling, wedged between the bodies of his friends.

Sandra gets as high as sixty and forgets what comes next. She snorts with laughter and starts over.

I’ll live like this, Maxence thinks, stay here forever, never think again.

At Lolla Paris, he has a fling with another model, Jasmine from Corsica, J.F.’s friend of a friend of a friend who filmed them cannonballing into the Mediterranean. She seems to be on the same summer festival circuit: he’s noticed her twice before, tall and sylph-like, dancing hypnotically near the DJ booth, so close to the speakers her eardrums must be on the verge of rupturing. In June she had black hair, then red; when they kiss, sometime in the middle of the night on 21 July, she’s gone platinum. In the morning, with her hair shining silver on the pillow, she tells him she’s deaf in one ear. She asks him if he wants to go to Sziget in August, and he turns her down.

“I really liked you in that show,” Jasmine says. “That _SKAM_ show. You’re totally different in real life, it’s crazy. You’re so into him on screen it makes me feel like I’m intruding. It makes my heart flutter, I’ll be honest. You make me want to get into acting…I even mentioned it to my agent…”

“You should go for it,” he says. He feigns sleep, then falls asleep for real.

Jasmine is gone by the time he crawls out of bed; she doesn’t leave a number. He tries to get it from J.F., who laughs and invites him out for a drink, which turns into two drinks, then five.

He passes the remainder of the month like this, listening to music with his eyes shut, drinking and smoking until he’s seeing double.

He doesn’t see Axel again until a meeting at France TV headquarters. Most of the focus is on Robin, who emerges from his tête-à-tête with the execs looking flustered but pleased. Maxence chats with Coline, hearing more about her vacation in the Pyrenees and reliving the terror of his cliff-diving in Corsica, and then he notices that she’s smiling and waving goodbye and whirls around to see Axel slipping away. He mumbles an excuse and hurries after him.

“Oh,” Axel says, as Maxence sidles up, _oh_ and nothing else. His smile feels rusted and creaky; he offers it anyway.

They ride the glass elevator down together.

“You’ve had a busy summer,” Axel says.

“What?” he says. A hasty examination of his memory finds him either dancing or horizontal or dancing horizontally. Sun, water, J.F. “Oh,” he says, “the music fests. Yes. And you—”

But the elevator is too fast for him; the doors are opening and Axel is stepping nimbly through, shoulders squared, his face turned toward the rest of his evening, wherever it may take him.

“Can we talk?” Maxence blurts. “Catch up, I mean?”

His mind supplies excuses. They haven’t seen each other since Pride, they’ll be filming together again soon, it’s not all that unreasonable…

“Now?” Axel says. As he says it, his eyes flicker toward the street. The streets are no longer his; he’s lost them the same way he lost the stage and Twitter. He has to set limits now, Maxence knows, on his exposure to his devoted fans.

“My place,” Maxence says. “I’ll even draw the curtains. Top secret. How about it?”

Axel grins at this. “Sure.”

He holds himself rigid as he walks, as cautious as Orpheus should have been with his Eurydice; he can’t turn, he thinks, because Axel won’t be there and he’ll find himself staring at an empty sidewalk. But when he reaches his apartment, Axel is right there, hovering at his shoulder. His face is open and smiling, unsuspecting.

“I was a little worried, you know,” Axel says, following him up the stairs. “All the festivals. _Is he gonna be okay for filming_ , I asked myself.”

“You saw my posts?”

“Of course. Every single one of them. The stories, too.”

The stories—the throbbing violet light, the girls. He fumbles at the lock, dry-mouthed, as one by one he remembers his song posts: those songs and their incriminating lyrics, the ones that would have laid his soul bare if anyone took the time to look them up.

“Stalker,” he says. The door squeals open. He makes himself laugh. “You never commented.”

“I didn’t know what to say,” Axel says, trailing him inside. “But it looked like fun. Biarritz especially. I…”

He really does mean to talk, to explain himself, but even before the door has closed completely behind them, he’s flattening Axel against it, finding Axel’s mouth, kissing away the bitten-off exclamation of surprise.

The violence of it surprises him too. He feels possessed, almost deranged. His hands are trembling the way they do when he lets himself get too hungry. He digs his fingers into Axel’s arms, presses his thigh between Axel’s legs and _feels_ him, feels the reaction and the sharp little gasp of breath Axel takes, shuddering into his lungs.

The last time he kissed Axel like this, they were filming the sequence that would become Vendredi 19:25. They were lying down, then, and it didn’t matter that his legs were shaking. Now he isn’t sure he’ll be able to hold himself upright. He sags into Axel and prays and after a moment he feels Axel’s hands on his shoulders: automatic, muscle memory. Axel’s mouth parts under his.

When he draws back, Axel is staring at him with Lucas’ eyes, big and blue and wondering.

“Catch up, huh,” Axel murmurs.

“In a manner of speaking.” He takes Axel’s hands. “Come,” he says. Axel stumbles toward him, looking dazed.

He coaxes Axel into his bedroom, onto his bed, presses him down. He kisses Axel’s throat, dragging his collar out of the way and nuzzling Axel’s head to the side so he can get his lips on the mole, that damn mole, that has been taunting him for months. David told him not to pay attention to it, said it would be too much. _You’re making love, not pornography._ It’s been driving him crazy. He sucks, and Axel groans, and Maxence slides his hands along the edges of Axel’s shirt and under.

Axel’s pants are sleek, fancy, engineered joggers, ultra stretchy and low on his hips, concealing nothing. He licks his lips and plunges his hand past the waistband and gets his hand around Axel, burning hot.

Axel jerks beneath him as though he’s been electrocuted.

“Fuck,” he exclaims, and then he winces.

“Sorry—too rough?”

Axel nods, wide-eyed.

Maxence pulls his hand away and drools into it, a dangling silver string of spit. Axel is watching him, his eyes so large and dark, biting his lip. His mouth falls open when Maxence closes his hand around him again.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, as Axel jolts and squeezes his eyes shut and writhes beneath him, canting his hips and rubbing his cock against Maxence’s palm in small helpless movements. Maxence starts to babble, groaning as though Axel is already touching him. “God. You’re beautiful, you’re everything. I want you so much. God, you’re dripping. Listen. _Fuck._ Listen. Do you like my hand on you?”

“Gonna,” Axel moans. “I’m gonna— _ah, fuck_!”

He bucks against Maxence’s hand, teeth gritted, eyes screwed up tight, pulsing into Maxence’s fist. Maxence kisses him again and again and again as he caresses him, until Axel is crying out and hissing and pushing at him, begging, “Wait, stop, enough, it’s sensitive, _ah_ , wait. Please!”

He sits back and almost sighs at the sight: Axel’s shirt is rucked up around his armpits, his pants around his thighs; his nipples are hard, his cock pink against his thigh and just beginning to soften.

Axel looks back, panting, red-cheeked, his hair in his eyes.

“You’re beautiful,” Maxence repeats. He reaches over to brush the hair away with his clean hand and freezes as he hears the clink of his belt and feels Axel’s fingers trembling at his waistband. “Axel—”

“Oh,” Axel says, as he pulls Maxence free of his briefs. For a moment, Maxence looms over him on all fours, heavy and hard and practically vibrating with desire. Axel cups Maxence in his hand like he’s weighing him. He hesitates. “Do you need,” he says, and mimes spitting into his palm.

“No,” Maxence says, lying back, gulping, “no, it’s fine, but do something, please.”

Axel begins to stroke him, experimentally; his grip is loose and feathery. Maxence wonders if this is how Axel touches himself, if he teases himself like this first. He imagines sitting behind Axel, his chest to Axel’s back, resting his chin on Axel’s shoulder as Axel gets himself off, shows Maxence exactly how he likes it.

He moans at the thought, deep in his throat.

Axel falters. “Sorry,” he says, “the angle is a little…”

“Please,” he says, “please, please, _please_ , God, don’t stop. Don’t stop.”

Axel inhales. His hand tightens; Maxence cries out.

“Okay,” Axel says, low. “I’ll take care of you.”

He strokes Maxence more firmly, a slight twisting motion that ends with a swipe of his thumb across the head. With a burst of frantic tenderness, Maxence realizes that Axel is copying him, that Axel has never done this before. He’s never done it before, but he’s doing it now for Maxence. He thinks of the other things Axel could do for him, with a little coaxing—spread his legs, get Maxence sloppy with lube, press his fingers inside Maxence and rub him until he’s sore and leaking. Push _himself_ inside until they are sealed together, joined.

“Axel,” he gasps, “ _Axel_ ,” and he’s coming, clenching, convulsing, shooting himself under the chin and across the chest.

Axel’s hand shivers to a stop, spiderweb-light on his skin.

“Axel, God,” he says. Come drips down his neck and across the still-twitching muscles of his stomach. He can barely hear Axel over the ragged sound of his own breathing. “Sorry,” he says, and giggles. “That was fast. Ahh, I’m embarrassed. Don’t look at me.”

“You were pent up,” Axel says.

“Pent up,” he agrees.

“Glad I could…” Axel is staring at him, lips parted; he trails off as Maxence grins. The red flush is spreading, burning all the way down his throat and across his chest. He takes a deep gulp of air and starts over. “Glad I could be of service.”

“I’m grateful,” he says, and Axel smiles, tentative and shy.

Sleepiness is seeping into his body, settling over him as warm and heavy as a winter quilt. He thinks about sitting lonely on his rooftop, watching a shadow slide across the moon, about the messages left unsent; he can send them, now, and many more besides. There’s no moon tonight, but he can take Axel upstairs anyway, to look at the city.

Before Axel can pull away, he rolls over and traps him in his arms. 

“I love you,” he whispers.

Axel’s only response is a brief, damp, clammy squeeze of his thigh.

The silence stretches. He fills it.

“Fuck,” he says, “sorry.”

“Maxence—”

“Sorry. You don’t have to say anything. Don’t, in fact. Don’t worry about it. Sorry, I shouldn’t have…”

He’s imagined how this would go: the post-coital murmuring, the stroking of hair, the kiss to the center of Axel’s forehead as fervent as a blessing. Instead, he falls asleep, still apologizing, so quickly it’s like fainting.

When he wakes, Axel is already dressed. He’s sitting at the edge of the bed, staring at the door and looking somber.

Axel says, “I didn’t know. Truly, I…” Maxence watches the nervous movement of his fingers in the duvet: squeeze and release, squeeze and release. “I need some time. To think. I’m sorry. I know it’s not what you were hoping to hear.”

“It’s okay,” Maxence says. Axel flinches, and he tries to lighten his voice, brighten it. It’s all a big joke and if Axel leaves now he won’t shatter. He’s rubber, he’s resilient. But the words are old and cracked by the time he forces them into open air. “Get out, then. Go think.”

“Thanks. Sorry. Thanks.”

The bed shifts and the door shuts and he lies there and digs the heels of his hands into his eyes until he sees static.

When he can speak again, he calls his sister. “I’ve blown it up,” he says. The lightheartedness has taken, finally: he’s his old bouncy self, and he sounds almost gleeful. He could be delivering good news. _I have a new project. I have a new shoot. Guess what, I’m getting dinner with Axel._ “Everything. The show. My career.”

“Oh, Maxou,” she says. “Where are you?”

“Paris,” he says. He hears a rustle and some muffled conversation, with her partner, maybe, or their mother. He screws up his face and tries not to cry.

Agathe brings her phone back to her ear. “Come home,” she says. “Just tell me when you’re getting in, and leave your phone in Paris. Charles and I will meet you at the station.”

“I can’t do that.”

“You can, and you will,” she says. “Tell Elisabeth where she can find you—give her the landline—and tell her you’ll be back in two weeks. Or three.” She lowers her voice. “How bad is it? Did you lose your part?”

He can’t imagine Axel running to David over this. But he doesn’t know how they can ever work together again, now that he knows—now that Axel knows—what it’s like to have his hands on Axel, to touch him— _really_ touch him. He’ll never be able to forget it. Even when he’s fifty, he’ll remember it, that first burning drag of his fingers over Axel’s naked hip.

“Oh, God!” he says. “God, I’m an idiot, I’m so stupid.”

“Maxence,” she says, hushed, “what did you _do_?”

“Axel,” he whispers. “I slept with Axel.”

She swears. “Oh my God, Maxence. Wait, but wait, doesn’t this mean—”

“Fuck. I can’t talk about it anymore. Sorry. I can’t. I’ll come tomorrow. In the afternoon. I’ll be there. I’ll text you.”

In Senlis, he walks in the forest and stares at the old Roman walls and plays board games with Agathe and Charles and Charles’ sprawling family: three siblings, five cousins, two first cousins once removed. He signs one autograph and takes a picture with a fan who just happened to be visiting from Paris. It makes its way onto Twitter, and he wonders if Axel sees it, imagines coming home to find Axel in the kitchen with his mother, chatting away over tea and madeleines.

He brings his phone after all, but the only messages he gets that week are some texts from J.F., asking if he’ll have time to go to Outlook in September, and an email from Elisabeth, forwarding a script from David and Niels.

“You see, it’s fine!” Agathe says.

“He hasn’t contacted me,” Maxence says.

“Doesn’t he have a girlfriend?” she says. “I bet he’s breaking up with her. Coming clean with his mother. Telling his agent, maybe. Settling his accounts.”

He doesn’t like how she puts it, _settling his accounts_ , like Maxence is a death sentence, like Axel is girding himself for a battle he doesn’t expect to survive. He gets wasted that night with Charles’ brothers and calls, but Axel doesn’t pick up, and Armand, who’s only had a sip, grabs his phone before he can get out much more than _Axellllll_.

“You’ll thank me in the morning,” Armand says gravely, holding the phone at arm’s length while Maxence whines at him and Charles laughs hysterically.

In the morning, before he can thank anyone, Axel calls.

The buzzing wakes him. Groggily, he unseals his face from the pillow, swipes at the dried saliva trailing down his chin, and answers without looking.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” Axel says. His voice is quiet, and Maxence fumbles at the volume button and wonders if he’s dreaming. “Are you free today? Can we meet?”

His hand starts to shake.

“I’m in Senlis,” he says. “Visiting my sister,” he says, and adds, wildly, “Boy troubles. I mean she’s having…I mean…”

“When you’re back, then,” Axel says, with the same quiet certainty.

 _I’m never coming back_ , Maxence thinks. _I am going to get my old job at the bank back, that’s what I’m going to do, counting money and depositing checks and opening accounts,_ opening _them, not settling them. And smiling at old women. I will live and die here in Senlis; I will be buried with my ancestors and the ancient Franks, and white flowers will bloom over us, along the Roman walls._

“I don’t know when…”

“Please,” Axel says. “I don’t want to do this over the phone.”

He stares at the cracked plaster of the ceiling and tells Axel he’ll be in Paris on Monday.

After that, it's a blur. He doesn't know what he tells Agathe, but he remembers the pressure of her fingers as she squeezes his hand. _You should have told him Tuesday_ , she says. _Our lucky day._ They go wading in the Nonette, squishing their toes into the mud, going in as deep as their chests. Heavy summer boughs hang over the water, turning the world green. He swims, splashes Agathe, counts fish.

By Friday, he can’t stand it anymore, the peaceful green and white bowl of his hometown. He returns to Paris early and spends the weekend lying low, literally lying low, flat on his belly in his apartment, reading and rereading his lines.

He doesn’t have too many. Mostly directions: Eliott enters here, Eliott leaves there, Eliott puts his arm around Lucas here, kisses Lucas there.

 _And what is the point_ , a frightened part of him cries in shrill anguish, _what is the point, when you’re about to lose your role anyway?_

J.F., back from Lisbon, tries to draw Maxence out for drinks.

“Come on,” he says, cajoling. “Your tan is going to fade away, Lord Voldemort.” Then he holds his phone away from his ear and makes everyone on the rooftop shout Maxence’s name. “You see, they’re all clamoring for you.”

“I can’t, I’m sorry,” he says.

“Oh?” J.F. says, in mild surprise. The noise drains away in the background. “I went into the stairwell,” J.F. explains. “Are you cutting back? That’s good, Maxence. Sorry, I didn’t mean to tempt you. If it’s a resolution, I support it. Okay?”

“It’s not that,” he says. He tugs at his lower lip with his fingers. “It’s not…”

Food, drink, sleep: all the basic functions of survival have lost their appeal. All he seems able to do is smoke, repeatedly, nervously, and even the pleasure of that, of the click of the lighter and the little burst of flame, the act of cradling the light in his hands, shielding it, watching it take hold, and the first warm inhalation, even that pleasure has dimmed. It’s just something to do, something to fill the growing hollow in his body. It’s Sunday. In twenty-four hours, Axel will turn him into a pile of ash.

He doesn’t say this to J.F., of course. He mumbles about the start of filming.

“Well, text me if you’re free,” J.F. says. “Remember that time we walked along the Rhône? You know we’re both capable of doing many things besides drinking.”

“Oh, really?” he says, and J.F. laughs and hangs up.

The night passes slowly. He spends part of it staring at himself in the mirror.

It’s hard to see Eliott in his face now, even now that his hair is longer. It’s grown in lighter than expected, fluffy in the heat.

He tiptoes up to the roof and rolls and smokes three cigarettes, one after another, watching the lights of the Eiffel Tower through the smoke and making all kinds of plans: he’ll break the lease on the apartment, he’ll find a place in Senlis, crash on his sister’s couch, ask J.F. to take him far away…

At 11:01 the next morning, he slips into a café not far from the Place Monge station, nestled between two dueling music bars. He wonders why Axel has chosen this location; then he recognizes the dim red interior of the piano bar, now shuttered—the backdrop of a movie where Axel played a drummer in a lycée band.

He sees Axel right away, sitting in the corner with his back to the wall, jiggling one leg, his fingertips perched on the porcelain shell of a cup, hunched over his drink like an old woman and staring into its white depths as though the foam will part and show him the future. When he looks up and notices Maxence hesitating by the door, he startles; he swipes the back of one hand hastily over his lip, once, twice, and then he sits up straight.

“What’ll you have?” he says, without preamble.

“Nothing, I’m fine, thank you,” Maxence says.

“I insist.”

“Really—”

“A cappuccino,” Axel says. “They can make it with skimmed milk. A café au lait? An espresso?”

He orders a tea, herbal, as floral as the shirt he is wearing. When he brings it back to the table, he doesn’t drink it, just turns it around and around with the tips of his fingers. He can see Axel’s hands out of the corner of his eye, laid flat on the table, loose and relaxed with the morning light shining gold through the filaments of hair on his knuckles and wrists.

“My mother says she isn’t surprised at all,” Axel says, and Maxence looks up.

Axel is looking at him, grinning, a fixed nervous grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

His stomach lurches. _Oh, God_ , he thinks. _Oh fuck._

He doesn’t speak; he can’t.

Axel hurries on. “And David, I met up with David last week and asked him…I asked if it would be a problem, for the filming, and he looked at me in complete amazement and said—can you believe this—he said he thought we were already, you know, together.”

“And is it?” he asks, thin and crackling.

“Is what?” Axel looks at him.

His eyes are so large, Maxence thinks.

“Is it going to be a problem?”

“What, is what—”

“What I said,” he says. Every word hurts as he pushes them out through a mouth that feels swollen. “What we _did._ ”

“But Maxence, you didn’t mean it, did you?” Axel says. He finds his paper napkin and starts to tear at it, picking it into little shreds. He stammers. “You can’t possibly have _meant_ —I mean—Maxence, it’s so hard to _know_. What’s you and what’s acting. You know? If the show were finished, that would be one thing, but it isn’t, we—we—we’re still—”

“Then why did you let me?” he says, tight, quiet. He stands, scraping his chair over the wooden floor. “Method acting? Just getting in the mood for season five? Fuck. They don’t teach that at the Facto. You _let_ me, you didn’t say a word—”

“Wait,” Axel says. His cup rattles on the table. A leg of his chair snags in a seam between planks, and he struggles with it, struggles to rise. “Wait, please. I let you because—I went along with it because you were so—I didn’t think about it, I just…Maxence, you’re beautiful, you could have anyone, I never thought…I couldn’t believe…”

The sunlight outside cuts him like a knife; pain sparkles at the corners of his eyes. The café door jingles as it shuts, and he turns and starts to walk, blindly, in some direction that will take him to the metro, or the Seine, or a chasm deep in the earth.

He breathes through his mouth, slow measured breaths, digging his fingernails into his palms: walk, breathe, walk, another step, another breath, good, keep it together, keep your face neutral, relax your muscles, everything is fine.

The door jingles again behind him.

“Maxence,” Axel shouts.

He takes off running; he doesn’t know what else to do.

Axel catches him in seconds. He closes his hand around Maxence’s elbow and spins him around, and Maxence stares down at him with his lip wobbling out of control. He blinks and blinks, trying to clear his vision, but the world remains blurry, and now his cheeks are wet.

“Oh fucking fuck,” Axel says. “Oh no. Oh don't. Shit. I’m sorry. I said everything wrong.”

“I’m fine,” he says. “I—don’t look at me. Go away.”

“I’m not going to go away,” Axel says, “you’re upset, I’ve upset you.”

He rubs angrily at his eyelids. “Well, there’s nothing you can do,” he says. “We’re stuck. Everything is ruined. I’ll tell David I can’t do it anymore. I’ll drop out. Go away, _please_ go away, I’m begging you.”

He starts to turn away. Axel grabs his hand and pulls him back.

“People are staring,” he tries.

“There’s no one here,” Axel says. “Maxence, look at me. Hey. _Maxence_.”

He looks.

Axel is gazing at him, flushed, bright-eyed. His hair is standing straight up, blown out of its careless arrangement. His face gleams with sweat. He sprinted from the café, Maxence realizes, he ran for dear life.

He’s going to start crying again: he can feel the sting building.

“You love me that much,” Axel says. “Enough to give up your place on the show.”

“Idiot,” he bursts out. “It’s self-preservation. How can I possibly become Eliott again when I can’t even bear to—”

“No, wait, just listen, please.” Axel clears his throat. “After we—that day—I really thought about it. I said to myself, maybe he was drunk, maybe he was stoned, there’s no way he could have been serious. Sex feels _good_ , you get wrapped up in it, you say things…”

"Let me go. Please let go." He has to get out of this awful sunlight, he has to get inside, crawl into a dark place, disappear. " _Axel please_."

“But then,” Axel says, holding on tighter, “then I thought, okay, let’s say he was high, let’s say it didn’t mean anything. And I didn’t like how that felt. I hated it, in fact.”

He rubs his thumbs through the sweat pooling on Maxence’s left palm.

“I don’t know what it is you see in me, I don't understand,” he says. He's talking fast, stumbling over his words. "You’re right, I’m an idiot…I’m stupid and selfish and I have bad habits, I hide them well but they’re there, and you’ll probably regret telling me, you’ll probably regret all of this…”

His pupils are pinpoints in a sea of blue under the vicious light; he's squinting, straining, his eyes watering with the effort not to blink.

“You were suffering," he says. "I realize that now. You were unhappy because of me…I'm sorry. That's the last thing I want. It's the last thing I want, for you to be unhappy. For you to—to cry. I don't want that. You know I don't want that. And _I_ know—" his voice cracks "— _I_ know it’s not fair to ask you to hang around. I know it's not kind. But I…but I…”

His heart is beating frantically in his chest; his throat is so tight it aches.

“But you want to try,” he says. "Is that right?"

He can feel it in the grip Axel has on his hand, the sweat drying on his face. 

“I'm sorry,” Axel says. “I’m sorry. It’s selfish. I know it’s selfish. Forgive me. Be patient with me.”

“Can I—”

He hesitates and touches his own lips, tasting the salt on his fingers.

Axel whispers, “Yes.” And as Maxence bends toward him, he closes his eyes.

Maxence brushes his thumb across Axel’s cheek. There’s a blush glowing there, under his tan. The sunlight glitters on him, on his upturned face. His mouth is soft, open, milky-sweet.

The rush of blood in Maxence’s ears is like the roar of the sea.

He feels the changing shape of Axel’s mouth as Axel stands on his toes, leans in, kisses him back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you liked, please [reblog](https://hallo-catfish.tumblr.com/post/186378412454/tes-beau-zetaophiuchi-ryuujitsu-skam-tv)!


End file.
